One Thing Your Startup Misses No Human Being Can Live Without
DNA carries instructions to develop, survive, and reproduce. So does brand DNA. Brand DNA is a fundamental compound that provides instructions to your startup. It facilitates growth and function and inspires others to follow its mission.
Let’s take a closer look at what is inside brand DNA.
Brand DNA consists of:
- Heritage
- Values and Beliefs
- Capabilities
- Uniqueness
- Persona
Heritage
What is your story? Why did you decide to start your business? What is urgent about the problem you’re solving? How did you meet your co-founder?
If you’re rebranding, why? What has changed? How did it get to the current point?
Values and Beliefs
What keeps you up at night? Which traits do you admire in people? What does your startup stand for?
Capabilities
What does your startup do? What problem does it solve? What are your key features?
Uniqueness
What makes your startup different? What is unique about your solution?
Persona
If your startup was a person, how would it act? Would it be loud or quiet? Rebellious or peaceful? Impulsive or thoughtful?
How would it speak? Slowly or fast? Is it a talker or a listener? Straight-forward or metaphorical?
What language would it use? Academic or casual? Does it prefer verbs or nouns?
Understanding your brand DNA is essential for the sustainable growth of startups in science. But before we dive into that, let’s consider why a startup needs DNA.
The goals of brand DNA are to:
- Define credible limits for your brand
- Define the startup’s personality
Brand DNA provides criteria for evaluating future relationships and steps. Choosing partnerships can serve as an example.
When founders look for partnerships, they ultimately look for someone to develop their business with long-term. It is worth questioning:
- Do people understand the importance of your solution?
- Do your value systems match?
In addition, startup founders are in charge of sharing company values among teammates. Shared values help maintain brand consistency. Knowing what your startup is made of makes it easier to communicate it.
Now every goal needs an action plan.
How to use Your Brand DNA in Your Brand Strategy
Your brand DNA is who you are as a company.
You don’t change who you are. But you can pick what to do with it. Similarly, your startup’s DNA drives its actions.
Manifest your Brand DNA through:
- Vision
- Mission
- Purpose
- Your team
- Visual identity
- Marketing strategy
- Product or service design
- Brand story
Your mission and purpose are the most important brand assets. We can choose a startup’s mission and even change it. Our personality and experience form our purpose. However, neither is part of the brand DNA because DNA is given. It drives brand and business strategies.
Can My Brand DNA Change?
With enough time, it can evolve.
Of course, it won’t change within a week, a month, or a year. But it will advance to adapt to new market conditions.
People build startups. That includes founders, employees, and target audience. As each interprets the brand, it will develop new layers.
Why is Brand DNA Important for Startups in Science?
Brands are created by people for people.
Your startup will have employees and customers.
Going back to the definition of brand DNA, it’s an instruction. It instructs your startup’s behavior. It also facilitates a relationship with your customers.
Scientific innovation is alluring at the beginning. But once the initial spark is gone, the strategy has to change. It switches from innovation-focused to relationship-focused.
The new challenge is to build and maintain relationships with your audience. How will your startup attract people for whom high-quality features are a commodity? The connection has to become more profound. Branding can help nurture a relationship.
On the other hand, any scientific invention will have its share of skepticism. A startup brand needs to build trust by being transparent, competent, and benevolent. So it’s worth including those characteristics in the value system of a startup in science.
Brand DNA helps brands be authentic, relevant, consistent, and ethical. In addition, it helps address the following industry challenges:
People are skeptical of scientific discoveries.
To address skepticism, a brand has to start a conversation. It has to show the match between the startup’s values and the audience’s.
Sharing values will help innovation implementation. Because it will help change the image from weird science to a valuable partner.
Scientific knowledge tends to be inaccessible.
Your customers may not be academics. So how are they supposed to know the benefits of science? A startup has to educate them.
Accessible education and transparency should be a part of the company’s value system.
Some scientific knowledge is complex.
Consumers don’t have time to read research papers. They are busy living their lives. To implement a scientific discovery into regular life, it has to sound “normal”.
A story helps the audience comprehend complex information. Understanding makes it more believable.
When it’s more believable, it feels more reliable.
Company culture is one of BioTech’s major challenges.
The foundation of company culture lies in values and brand purpose. The purpose gives people a reason to do their job beyond making money.
If a startup has personal growth among its values, it facilitates the self-actualization of its employees. A startup in science becomes a platform to explore one’s full potential for people from different backgrounds.
Build a startup with integrity.
Some startups develop new medicine while others find ways to implement scientific research into their products or services. Either way, people expect higher quality from science than any commodity product.
Integrity has to be part of a value set to meet the audience’s expectations.
You need people to grow.
A startup in science needs customers to use the product, investors to fund the company, and partners to develop the technology.
People are both rational and emotional. They want to engage with brands with a big goal and a proven action plan.
On a practical note, brand DNA offers social media and presentations content.
Features, values, and a story are already three topics to share on social media. They work well as an introduction.
Brand DNA also gives a startup substance. It makes any content more compelling and alive. A startup stops being a collection of features. Instead, a brand DNA turns it into an entity, a human institution to grow and develop.
Key Takeaways
- Brand DNA is the first block to building your startup brand.
- It instructs business strategy, branding, and marketing efforts.
- A brand DNA consists of the brand’s capabilities, uniqueness, heritage, values, and voice.
- Founders transfer brand DNA to employees. Knowing and understanding brand DNA will help maintain brand consistency.
- Brand DNA fills the startup with substance. This is when a startup goes beyond offering features. It provides experience and self-actualization opportunities.
- Company values play a significant role in company building, especially for startups in BioTech.
- Integrity, collaboration, personal growth, learning, and transparency should be part of a startup’s value systems, especially for startups in science.
- Seeing a startup’s values may help consumers warm up to a novel scientific solution. Therefore, branding may assist in integrating science into regular life.
I’m Ksenia and I do brand design and strategy for startups in biotech and life sciences to help them take their science beyond academia. Check out my website to learn more. If you like the articles, subscribe to my Substack.
